The pickleball world is not a large one — and on Friday, it became smaller.
The identities of the five people killed when a Cessna airplane crashed in a wooded area near Wimberley, Texas on Thursday night have been confirmed. They were members of the Amarillo Pickleball Club, traveling together to compete in a tournament — the kind of trip they had made together many times before.
They were Hayden Dillard, Seren Wilson, Brooke Skypala, Stacy Hedrick, and pilot Justin Appling — all from Amarillo, Texas, all part of a group that friends and fellow players described as inseparable, warmhearted, and impossible not to enjoy being around.
The plane went down at approximately 11 p.m. Thursday in Wimberley, a Hill Country tourist community of roughly 3,000 people located about 40 miles southwest of Austin. There were no survivors.
Justin Appling was more than the pilot on this flight. He was a pickleball player himself — one who, according to Sarah Lister, a fellow competitor who had gotten to know several of the group through tournaments, was a constant source of laughter.
“He was always making them laugh,” Lister told The Associated Press.
Hayden Dillard was, in Lister’s description, “an amazing businesswoman and mother” — a woman with two daughters, one of whom was on the verge of starting college. She and Appling had played mixed doubles together for years. Her women’s doubles partner was Brooke Skypala.
Seren Wilson was the youngest member of the group. Before discovering pickleball, she had been an accomplished tennis player — a 2022 University Interscholastic League state champion in team tennis while attending Amarillo High School, according to the school’s tennis booster club.
Stacy Hedrick rounded out the four club members on board.
Leroy Clifford, another club member who had been traveling to the same tournament on a separate plane, described the group in terms that made clear this was not just a collection of competitive sports acquaintances — it was a genuine community of friends.
“One thing I can say about this group is this group, you wanted to be around this group. They were fun, carefree, not uptight, just relaxed, loved to joke with each other, make fun of each other,” Clifford said. “You couldn’t ask for better friends, honestly.”
He spoke specifically of Skypala, whom he had played the most alongside.
“She was very witty, super sweet and very funny,” he said.
Dan Dyer, president of the Amarillo Pickleball Club, said he had played games with four of the five who perished — and had handed them medals.
“They were excellent players. They were out to win some games,” Dyer said. “Every weekend there are dozens of tournaments. Some people get the bug; others don’t. But once they do, they’ll travel for a tournament.”
The Crash — and What Air Traffic Control Heard
The two planes departed Amarillo at the same time, both bound for a tournament in Central Texas. The second plane landed safely at the airport in New Braunfels, approximately 30 miles northeast of San Antonio.
The pilot of that second aircraft told air traffic controllers he had not heard from Appling’s plane.
A controller’s response was ominous: “He started to move erratically, and now his track is disappeared from the scope. So, we want to make sure everything’s all right with him.”
At least one other pilot in the area confirmed that the troubled aircraft’s emergency locator device had emitted a distress signal. The controller then contacted 911.
The National Weather Service reported mostly cloudy conditions near New Braunfels shortly before the crash. A thunderstorm developed approximately two hours afterward.
The wreckage was discovered in a wooded area on Round Rock Road in Wimberley.
Investigation Ongoing
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are jointly leading the investigation into the crash’s cause. As of Saturday, the cause had not been determined.
No one aboard the second plane was injured.
Sarah Lister — who traveled to the same tournaments as Dillard and Appling, and knew the group well — captured what this loss means to the world they all shared.
“The pickleball world is super, super small, even though it’s huge at the same time,” she said. “And when one of us has a tragedy like this, it’s like it’s the whole community that gets hit.”
For Leroy Clifford, who landed safely in New Braunfels while the crash was unfolding nearby, the loss is both global and deeply personal. He had only recently met Seren Wilson — yet described all five as family.
They had competed together in Pro Pickleball Association-sanctioned tournaments across the country — from Dallas to Las Vegas. They were serious competitors who did not take themselves too seriously. They made people want to be around them.
Now they are gone, and the sport they loved is grieving.
Hayden Dillard, Seren Wilson, Brooke Skypala, Stacy Hedrick, and Justin Appling were on their way to play the game they loved when their plane went down in the Texas Hill Country on a Thursday night. They were athletes, friends, mothers, daughters, and partners — a group whose presence, by every account from those who knew them, made every court and every tournament a better place to be. The NTSB and FAA will determine what caused the crash. The pickleball community — tight-knit and suddenly, painfully smaller — will be working through the grief for considerably longer.
